One thing that gets me about Brikwars is the overall short ranges on ranged weapons. Now this may have stemmed from playing too much 40k but I have to wonder why the relatively low ranges?

Here is some of my reasoning.

1. My buddy is a Marine and during boot he told all the guys there could accurately hit a man sized target at 300 yards standing up. I'm not saying boost the range of standard rifles to 60 In, but I just think 10 is a little too low.

I know I probably am starting to repeat myself a bit, but these are just my observations. If I had to guess, I would say the low ranges would be there to promote hand to hand combat, but usually in my games there is none.

I am also aware that when I'm playing with my buddies I can make the ranges whatever I want. Again these are just my observations.

I remember there was something in the rulebook about shooting out of range in exchange for a skill penalty. I mean, even if you could hit something at a far distance it'd still be less accurate than shooting at close range.

I would think that the reasoning behind the "short" ranges would be to encourage more close combat fighting. That's also why CC weapons do more damage than ranged weapons.

Another thing to consider is that the rules are all-encompassing, meaning that the range for a rifle is going to be the same as the range for a bow and arrow or a medieval hand cannon, many of which weren't very accurate past 50 yards.

That's always one of the main problems with multigenre wargames. Even most RPGs don't handle modern firearms all that well, especially if they're in the same system as a longbow. You sort of have to slit the difference and shrug your shoulders or acknowledge that, with the advent of modern firearms, most other weaponry is essentially useless.

Reminds me of a warhammer mash up game I saw once. Blood Angels versus Wood Elves. Funny as hell.

Why not have a separate ruleset for a fantasy setting and a more modern setting? That would seem to solve some problems, although, I seem to be the only one complaining, haha. One problem with that I can already see happening is if people wanted to play Fantasy Vs Modern. Players with a fantasy army would be at a disadvantage. That's not to say that someone with a modern army wouldn't have it be CC oriented.

Quantumsurfer wrote:Reminds me of a warhammer mash up game I saw once. Blood Angels versus Wood Elves. Funny as hell.

halo 3000 wrote:Why not have a separate ruleset for a fantasy setting and a more modern setting?

Because the ruleset needs to remain as simple as possible, it's better to remain as one. Also, it's Brikwarsy to have a group of knights fight alongside a group of spacemen against some aliens and barbarians.

Mike explained this in the long ago.He would probably do it again just for you, but he is currently away getting "shamrocked".Uhm, I don't know what that means but its probably something Mike would do.

I really, really, really love genre mash-ups. So being able to compose my armies of whatever takes my fancy has always been the biggest draw about BW for me. As a core system, I prefer this, even if it can get really damn silly. Maybe especially because it gets really damn silly.

That being said, there appear to be several movements on the forums creating supplementals and alternate game types. Perhaps we could codify a simple supplemental alteration for singular genre based games and dump it on the wiki under Rules Supplements.

Zupponn wrote:Because the ruleset needs to remain as simple as possible, it's better to remain as one.

Eh, I think that's just an opinion. I respectfully disagree. I do agree that it should be as simple as possible, but Brikwars at its core is based around playing the game how you want. "If you don't like a rule, Fudge it!" If someone wants to mix the two settings, use the standard rules. I guess the best thing to do would be to create some, oh I don't know, "Bonus material" geared towards ranged combat. I know for certain the core rules aren't going to change just because I'm sitting here whining about my opinion on the weapon ranges.

Zupponn wrote: It's Brikwarsy to have a group of knights fight alongside a group of spacemen against some aliens and barbarians.

This on the other hand is a fact, haha.

Quantumsurfer wrote:Perhaps we could codify a simple supplemental alteration for singular genre based games and dump it on the wiki under Rules Supplements.

I would be very interested in working on this. I've already got some ideas.

Quantumsurfer wrote:Dandy, I'm happy to toss my two cents in if it'll help.

I tell you what man, we could get on Skype sometime and work on this together if you would be interested. I think we've got similar ideas on the RTS style game that we've been talking about in the other thread too.

Zupponn wrote:I would think that the reasoning behind the "short" ranges would be to encourage more close combat fighting. That's also why CC weapons do more damage than ranged weapons.

This is pretty much the entire reason summed up. It's not an issue about realism (it should be pointed out that if you're opting for realism you are playing THE WRONG GAME SON), but one of game balance.

The way things are, CC weapons are approximately as good as ranged weapons. Let's just compare how easy it is to deal 1d6 damage to a target between the two formats: a knife and a pistol.

With a pistol, a minifig is only within range (not dicking with out of range shots) at 6", which is exactly how far a standard minifig can move and stab with the extra angry inch. Of course, the ranged weapon can also be readied as a response action so that it fires before the stabber is in range. To counter this, the knife is easier to stab with because the UR is one lower.

Now let's compare sword vs. rifle. Rifle's got a 10" range: assuming an average roll on a d6, this is almost exactly how far a minifig can sprint in a turn. If it's a spear, they can make a charge attack too.

IF ranged weapons had longer ranges, they'd be superior to melee weapons in every way, and there'd be no reason to actually use them other than the fact that they look cool. If they're approximately the same, then coolness is the only game-changing element to focus on, which is a pretty good goal to aim for.

If you're determined on having different tech levels, I suggest you check out the 2001 rulebook's section on Tek Levels. It listed 6 tech levels that corresponded to 6 levels of "history" from the stone age to the cosmic age, and if I remember the formula right, you just added the tek level to pretty much every stat a minifig had (including CP). Unfortunately, rolling 1d6+5 vs. 1d6+6 is a lot more intensive than simply rolling 1d6 at each other for effectively the same thing.

I would opt against a separate ruleset for fantasy and for modern only because I forsee it raising more problems than it actually solves. If you want longer ranges, just play with double range or something and be done with it.